What Does The Black Widow Delay Mean For Disney?
Black Widow Delays Its Bow
Okay, so MickeyBlog.com pounced on the frustrating news about the (latest) Black Widow delay.
However, none other than The Washington Post — yeah, the paper that brought down Nixon (there are two movies about that) — used precious ink (and bytes) reporting and speculating about the future of Disney’s release schedule.
That said, they started by pointing out a NON-Disney film that set the tone.
Tenet Set The Tone
Americans’ reluctance to return to theaters was solidified this month when Warner Bros. released “Tenet,” the new Christopher Nolan action adventure, in theaters in cities that were open. The film has done well internationally, grossing $215 million since coming out a month ago. But it collected just $36 million over three weekends in the United States, an exceedingly modest sum for a filmmaker who usually grosses many times that.
That coupled with the Mulan fiasco, and welp:
- Originally scheduled for May of this year, then moved to November, “Black Widow,” the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, won’t be released until May of next year, Disney said.
- “West Side Story,” Steven Spielberg’s version of the iconic musical that had been one of the most anticipated films of the holidays, has been pushed a full year from this December to December 2021.
- And “Eternals,” Chloé Zhao’s take on the immortal alien race for the Marvel franchise, won’t be released until November 2021, a full year after its original release date.
No Black Widow: What Does The Delay Mean?
So, what does all of this mean to Disney? To movie theaters?
Zeitchik explained:
The near-term effect on Disney’s bottom line will be considerable. Disney drew nearly $3 billion in profit from theatrical films last fiscal year; the latter number represented nearly 20 percent of its total profit.
And, for theaters – the news is awful:
The top five films at the domestic box office in 2019 all came from Disney, including juggernauts such as “Avengers: Endgame,” “The Lion King” and “Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker,” each of which grossed over a half-billion dollars in the United States.
And, in the end, it shows how much Disney relies on movie theaters and, vice versa.
Disney Theaters?
Finally, given how successfully the re-opening of Walt Disney World has been. AND given how much Disney likes to control their consumer’s environment from start to finish. HOW about a bet that The Walt Disney Company will soon be in THE MOVIE THEATER BUSINESS?
B-B-B-But that’s illegal. Right? Nope.
This article from Polygon ends with the paragraph:
With the old decrees out of the way, the road is now open for big studios like Disney to look beyond single small theaters and set their sites on nationwide giants, if they’re so inclined.
Stay tuned, Mouseketeers. Stay tuned.
